The Goddess' Messanger
by Aletheia Vox
Summary: A paper plagued college student is pulled into the fantasy world of her once-favorite books, The Song of the Lioness Quartet, only to find that the character she despised most, Lady Delia, is one of the sweetest people she has ever met...


Disclaimer: With the exception of Samantha and David so far, these characters don't belong to me, theyTamora Pierce, author of the Song of the Lioness Quartet, etc.  
  
So this started as a little recurring daydream I had in middle school. The result was a bunch of crappy fanfic stories, even though I didn't officially know what those were yet. That seemed to get it out of my system for at least the next few year. For some reason, though, the little daydream came back while I was writing my philosophy term paper this past October. It's now the end of the semester and my brain has melted from too much philosophy (not that I don't love it normally). All names of people based on friends of mine were changed. It's time for some fun...  
  
* * * * * * * *  
  
She stared at the computer screen and a long sigh escaped her mouth. It was done. Her eleven page term paper on what exactly Paul meant in Romans when he ranted about 'circumcision of the heart' was finally done. It was time to sleep. She had been working on it for three days straight and by all rights, it's completion should have been a time to run outside, let out a victorious war cry and do a little dance in the Santa Fe mountain snow. For some reason, though, she had absolutely no desire to do so. Her victory over the paper aroused in her no emotion-not joy, not relief, nothing. She just wanted to go to sleep.  
  
The clock on her dorm room desk proclaimed 4:42am, and the harsh red digits seemed to scold her for being up so late. But there was no going back now. The paper was due the next day at noon and she had needed to finish it. She sighed again, clicked the print button, and walked over to her bed, where her boyfriend was already asleep and sprawled out like moss over a tree. He was lucky. He got to sleep since turned in his paper two days before.  
  
"Da-vid," she whispered as she leaned over the sleeping figure, "David, move over. I finished my paper and I want to go to bed." He groaned groggily and took over even more of the bed. She tried to roll him over to one side, but he wouldn't budge.  
  
"Well, Samantha, this is what happens when you date someone twice your size," she muttered to herself. Not that it was difficult for Samantha to find guys twice her size; most guys were. At nineteen years old she was short, petite, wide-eyed, and long haired-and was often mistaken for being only fourteen or fifteen. "Damn my Asian ancestors," she swore, "why couldn't I have taken after the Scandinavian part of my family?"  
  
She couldn't move David, so she wouldn't get any sleep in her own room. The only thing to do was to trek across campus and sleep in David's room. That walk wasn't usually long. It was downhill and mountain silence was pleasant, but tonight it was snowing, the first snow of the season, it would be cold, and the wind would be blowing. She really didn't want to go out into the cold, but she needed to sleep. Finally giving in to her own fatigue, she put on her warm winter coat, stuffed the printed term paper, her math book, and her current knitting project (a Harry Potter Gryffindor style scarf) into her backpack and started off for David's room.  
  
Samantha made sure to lock the door on her way out, and found herself halfway down the hill before she realized that she had locked her key in her room. She wouldn't be able to get back in in the morning! At least, not with the way David slept like a log until noon on Mondays. She swore as she trudged back up the hill. She lived on the ground floor of her building and always left on of the windows slightly ajar at night. Maybe she could crawl in the window and grab her key.  
  
The walk back up to her room was colder than the way down due to the wind coming down the mountains. She made it back up to her building and walked around to the back until she reached her own window. Now, if only she could pop the screen out from outside and open the window a bit further...  
  
Then a branch snapped off a small tree a few feet away from her and cat screeched. The girl turned to see what had happened and noticed a black cat in the snow under the tree alternately licking its paws and hissing at the fallen branch.  
  
"Bagheera...?," Samantha called and the cat looked up at its name, "Bagheera! There you are. Jessi's been looking for you for weeks!" Samantha's best friend and freshman year roommate had been hysterical when she came back to her room after class one day to find a large hole in her window screen and her cat gone. They searched for Bagheera in the arroyo next to the school every afternoon for almost two weeks before they gave up, and sadly admitted to themselves that Jess' cat had most likely been killed by one of the coyotes in the arroyo.  
  
"I should take you back to Jess. She's probably awake and she'll love to see you." Samantha picked up the cat to look at it's tags in order to make sure it was the right cat, but before she could make out anything besides the color of the tags, Bagheera squirmed out of her arms and ran a few feet away. There, he turned back as if, and it this Samantha thought she was seeing things, to make sure Samantha followed. Which she did.  
  
"C'mon silly, let me take you back inside where it's warm," she purred at Bagheera, but Bagheera just looked at her again before running off into woods. Samantha continued to chase after the cat for several minutes until she realized that she was further into the woods than she had ever been before. Bagheera finally stopped running and Samantha took the chance to scoop him up in her arms again.  
  
"Ha! Gotcha!," Samantha said as she stroked the cat, "And now are you going to show me the way back? Or do I have to do that on my own?" Samantha wasn't much of an outdoorsy person at school. She enjoyed her annual summer canoeing trips with her friends from high school, but this was New Mexico; there were no rivers to canoe in, and hiking wasn't something she had time to take up when her classes were as hard as they were. Now she looked around her and wished she had taken the time to learn the woods around the college. She looked at the unfamiliar trees and, as always, she was struck by the beauty of the mountain forest. It was completely silent but for the sound of snowflakes lightly touching the ground as they feel. The snow, on the ground and in the air, glittered in the soft light of the moon. It was a the most beautiful snowfall she had ever seen. It was almost...magical.  
  
Suddenly, Bagheera jumped out of her arms again, shoving Samantha out of her reverie. The cat ran just past where the moonlight allowed Samantha to see. Tired but resigned, she followed him once again. He sat beneath a tall tree with snow covered branches, seemingly waiting for her. Samantha squatted down beside him and stroked his black shiny fur. When she stoked the fur on his forehead and between his eyes, Bagheera purred, like he always did when she pet him there. She found a relatively snow- less place beside him and sat down to rest, while she continued stoking the cat, as she used to do when she was stressed out out papers or tests. She let her eyes close for a bit to enjoy the moment when a harsh, but strangely beautiful voice cut through the gentle silence of the snow and the night.  
  
"It is dangerous to be out alone in these woods at night, my daughter."  
  
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Hey y'all...this is my first public fanfic, uh, hmm, let's see here, EVER. So some feedback would be absolutely lovely. Criticize to your heart's delight... 


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